Simple Questions & Answers Thread

[Plinkoman]

At the end of each taping they draw a door prize of $100. If you were a previous contestant within the last ten years and you go to a taping just to watch, and you just so happen to win the door prize, are you still eligible to win the $100?

Just curious because I'm planning on taking a few friends out to LA next year and, while I won't be eligible for another 8 years, 9 months, 3 weeks, and 3 days (not that I'm counting, or anything), and think it would be neat to snag an extra $100 just for attending a taping.

[Spmahn]

I have a question regarding the rules of Card Game. Maybe they explain this and I just don’t pay enough attention, but is there anything stopping you from continually drawing cards until you draw the Ace and then making the price whatever you think it should be? Or is there a rule that once you get the Ace you can pick any number you want but it can’t be a number lower than the current price based on the previous cards drawn?

[Thatgameshowguy]

The way the ace actually works is you can make the ace any number that will be added to your total. Back in the Bob days contestants had to do a little bit of math to figure out how much they want to add to their total.


You can not make the ace a negative number, so no subtracting from your total.


You could also hold on to the ace and use it after drawing some other cards if you wanted but I don't think anyone has done that in quite a long time.

[SteveGavazzi]

Back in the Bob days contestants had to do a little bit of math to figure out how much they want to add to their total.

No, they didn't.

[blozier2006]

One thing I'm curious about... I know there's details in the Timeline about things like
* the first non-Golden Road 5-digit car
* when each car game started offering 5-digit cars (and when their final 4-digit cars were)
* when the final 4-digit Showcase was

But I'm surprised there's nothing on when the first 5-digit Showcase was. Do we know when that happened?

[SuperSweeper]

One thing I'm curious about... I know there's details in the Timeline about things like
* the first non-Golden Road 5-digit car
* when each car game started offering 5-digit cars (and when their final 4-digit cars were)
* when the final 4-digit Showcase was

But I'm surprised there's nothing on when the first 5-digit Showcase was. Do we know when that happened?

The absolute latest it would be would be the spring of 1975. On Carlos’s old YouTube channel, he had a clip of a cat-themed Showcase from that time that had both a Toyota Corolla and a Jaguar XKE. And yes, this was a daytime episode.

[Thatgameshowguy]

No, they didn't.

I thought I remembered a clip of someone accidentally bidding more than they meant to, but I'm probably just confusing it with something else. My bad.

[COINBOYNYC]

The way the ace actually works is you can make the ace any number that will be added to your total. Back in the Bob days contestants had to do a little bit of math to figure out how much they want to add to their total.

No, they didn't.

They didn't/don't?  Are you saying that, whatever dollar value of the cards you've already drawn, if you draw the ace you can say "I think the total value of the car is X"?

Or am I missing something here?  Because I've always thought it was, if you have, say, $3,200 and you draw the ace, you give Bob/Drew a number, and that number will be added to the $3,200, at which point the gameplay ends and you find out if you won.

[pricefan18]

They didn't/don't?  Are you saying that, whatever dollar value of the cards you've already drawn, if you draw the ace you can say "I think the total value of the car is X"?

Or am I missing something here?  Because I've always thought it was, if you have, say, $3,200 and you draw the ace, you give Bob/Drew a number, and that number will be added to the $3,200, at which point the gameplay ends and you find out if you won.

From best I recall, Bob at least at times would tell a contestant who got an Ace, that if they had a price in mind they could give it to him, and the game would stop right then and there. So I'm inclined to believe Steve on this one, it makes the most sense anyway, since it's simpler than forcing them to do math in that moment.

[tpir04]

The way Drew explains it, aces can be 1) any number which will be added to your current total, or 2) the contestant can name a price and stop the game right there. If you want to make the ace a number, I would assume it to be understood to be any positive, whole number (that is, greater than zero with no decimal point). However if you wish to state a price, I have not found anything that says you cannot state a price lower than your current bid, and if that is not allowed perhaps Drew should say so. (Reason that he doesn't, I think, is that such a rule is unnecessary. When the contestant draws another card, it would imply that they believe their current bid is too low and so nobody ever thinks of going lower.)

[pricefan18]

The way Drew explains it, aces can be 1) any number which will be added to your current total, or 2) the contestant can name a price and stop the game right there. If you want to make the ace a number, I would assume it to be understood to be any positive, whole number (that is, greater than zero with no decimal point). However if you wish to state a price, I have not found anything that says you cannot state a price lower than your current bid, and if that is not allowed perhaps Drew should say so. (Reason that he doesn't, I think, is that such a rule is unnecessary. When the contestant draws another card, it would imply that they believe their current bid is too low and so nobody ever thinks of going lower.)

That would make an interesting wrinkle gotta admit though......and not as if other games don't allow for chances to make changes (Temptation for example). Might be a bit odd here that said, but still an intriguing thought.

[gamesurf]

The problem with allowing aces to be negative is it makes aces so powerful every other card in the deck is irrelevant.

Like spmhan alluded to, a contestant could potentially draw 20, 30, or 40+ cards from the deck looking for an ace and then just bid what they wanted to bid in the first place. That’s a waste of everyone’s time.

It’s fine for a game called “Card Game” to have some dependency on luck of the cards.

[JayC]

Like spmhan alluded to, a contestant could potentially draw 20, 30, or 40+ cards from the deck looking for an ace and then just bid what they wanted to bid in the first place. That’s a waste of everyone’s time.

Unrelated, but it made me wonder: what is the most amount of cards a contestant has pulled in a single playing?

[gamesurf]

Dunno overall, but the largest in the Drew era was 13 cards, reached twice.

Once was in S43 during Dream Car week (the contestant went about $4,000 over), the other was in S37 (where it turned out all 13 draws were needed to win the car).

Neither contestant drew an ace.

[Spmahn]

Are there statistics that the show keeps of how often contestants waive the prizes they’ve won and which prizes get rejected the most? Some stuff like electronics or small appliances are almost certainly kept by everyone, but lets say you live in a small apartment and win a giant fridge, or a washer and dryer, or a pool table, or a hot tub, something completely impractical for your situation, more likely than not you’re just going to say thanks but no thanks, right? Especially if you don’t have the means to store whatever it is until you sell it for probably 40% of it’s actual value. Same goes with boats or jet skis I would imagine as well?

The vacations are an interesting one too, I would imagine for a lot of contestants their trip to LA and appearance on TPIR probably is their vacation from work, and it seems unlikely that they’d want or be able to immediately take a jaunt to some other location, and that’s assuming it’s not a trip to someplace they’re meh about traveling to in the first place.